Wednesday readers' views

Midland Daily News

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, March 31, 2009

CO2 emissions link to global warming called 'greatest hoax'

To the editor:

I have read with interest recent articles in the paper about the generation of "green energy" to combat climate change through windmills installed or to be installed in the Michigan Thumb area. It was stated that these windmills are capable of generating 14,000 megawatts per hour, enough to supply power for 17,000 homes and will prevent 10,000 tons CO2 from being released. It made me wonder though how these windmills are going to generate that kind of power when there is no wind. On what then is that 14,000 mw/hr based, a 30-mile /hour wind 24/7?

Anyone who has sailed the lakes in and round Michigan can tell you that the winds are notoriously fickle and unpredictable, almost from hour to hour let alone over months and years. I spend quite a bit of time in the Leelanau Peninsula and I have observed the windmills there to lazily turn if at all most of the time. There were quite a few more then than the only one now remaining. The actual observed capacity of these windmills near Traverse City is between 15 and 20 percent.

It would be interesting to know how much of our tax money is involved in the building of the windmills in the Thumb. It is clear that without your and my tax dollars these windmills could never compete on the basis of the costs we now pay for our power.

It would appear that the articles equilibrated the 10, 000 tons of CO2 emissions with the generation of 14,000 mw/hr. The articles did not say over what time the CO2 will be emitted and by what type of equipment. It would not surprise me if the equipment compared to was the power generated by a 100-year-old boiler. It certainly could not have been nuclear power because that would have generated that much electricity and probably 100 times more without any CO2 emissions. Nor could it have been based on the amount of hydropower that would have been generated by some of the 200 dams destroyed by the federal government and others since 1999. There, too, no CO2 would have been emitted.

The concept that clean energy as defined by environmentalists could supply any realistic amount of energy consumed in this country is ridiculous. The total amount of energy from both wind and solar conversion for 2008 was about 45.5 million megawatt hours. We used about 4.12 trillion megawatt hours of electricity in that year. Thus wind and solar electricity contributed about 1.1 percent. Now Mr. Obama wants to double that in the next three years and that still would only take care of 2.2 percent of our needs, a trifling amount. And that is going to reduce global warming?

As stated by Sen. James Inhofe, global warming as a result of increased CO2 emission caused by humans is the greatest hoax pushed on the public since the beginning of this country. It is a fact that the global concentration of CO2 has increased over the last 50 years from little more than 300 ppm to less than 400 ppm and might reach such in another seven or eight years at the present rate of increase, most of which is due natural causes. That is from 3 molecules in 10,000 to 4 molecules in 10,000. Applied to the City of Midland in terms of the winter flu, it means that if flu cases increase in the entire city from about 12 to about 16, environmental activists and Al Gore want to convince us that the increase constitutes an epidemic. Put another way, environmental scientists want to convince you that an increase of 0.0001 percent in atmospheric CO2 has caused global warming.

Environmental activists claim the ice cap in the Arctic is shrinking as a result of the increase in green house gases caused by humans. They rely on measurements of the ice in August when it is the warmest and of course the ice is melting and shrinking. Measured this January I have read that the polar ice has increased so much as to take us back to the size it was in the early '80s. Environmental scientists claim Antarctica is shrinking by the decrease of the ice in some places, but don't tell you that overall it is increasing to record size. I believe it is arrogant and presumptuous to assume that our misconceived, miniscule efforts to intervene in nature can change it. If there is global warming it will happen as it has for millions of years regardless of human effort.

The Obama administration has enthusiastically embraced this hoax because it provides it with a tax gold mine which all of us who receive our power from fossil fuel-based power plants have to pay into. Thus by instituting the cap and trade program limiting CO2 emission of businesses in which emission permits are sold, the Obama administration wants to raise anywhere from 0.5 to one trillion dollars. This cost will of course be passed on to those of us who pay our taxes, mortgages and other debts and may have a few dollars left over, in higher power costs. For those who don't, President Obama, in true socialist fashion, will have subsidies and other credits.

Environmental activists want to prevent the building of coal-fired power plants to generate low cost electricity needed for manufacturing and jobs, as contrasted to other forms, particularly renewable energy. Can anybody tell you how much global warming we would prevent if we did not build the coal-fired power plant in Midland? And the rest of the world will follow suit? Does anyone really believe that we can convince China or India to build even reduced emission power plants, let alone "green energy" plants, instead of the cheapest plants as they are doing right now, emitting huge amounts of CO2? Not based on my experience and I grew up in China. China is putting such new power plants on line every 10 to 20 days. China will not only have the advantage of cheap labor but both cheap labor and power. Guess where our windmills will come from! Embargos to prevent such would only cause China to not buy our treasury notes, which in turn would require President Obama to keep printing money to finance his stimulus giveaways without backing for such. The new slogan would then be "Welcome to Zimbabwe of America!"

Even the most ardent environmentalists at the notoriously unreliable UN have predicted that their proposed ambitious worldwide CO2 emission reduction plan will only reduce global temperatures by 0.070 in fifty years. What good would that do? I resent having to pay for and attempts to have my lifestyle reduced by so-called green projects on which those advocating them have not the slightest idea how much good they will do in reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations or have any meaningful effect on climate change. Show me that the rest of the world is doing the same and that such efforts reduce global warming meaningfully and I will support them.

BILL SANDT

Midland

Keep three point shot

To the editor:

On March 16, an article was published about getting rid of the three point line in high school basketball. Although I agree with the author that three point shots develop bad shooting habits in young players, I thought this point strayed from the main issue, high school basketball, by distracting the reader. Also, I agree that sometimes three pointers do not promote teamwork (when someone is a ball hog and only shoots three pointers without passing the ball at all) but often, they are actually the product of teamwork (when a player drives to the basket to draw the defense, and then dishes it out to the open player for a three.) In addition, the article mentions that shooting threes hurts mid-range jump-shots, which, in turn, hurts free-throw shooting. But free-throws and jump-shots are not the same. When shooting free-throws, you are allowed plenty of time to shoot and usually do not jump. I do not think three point shots should be removed from high school basketball.

TYLER BOUMA

Midland

Don't blame Democrats for recent rate hikes by Consumers Energy

To the editor:

I don't usually defend either political party, but attacks blaming Gov. Granholm's signing of the energy bill for Consumers Energy's recent rate hikes has prompted me. I attended a town hall meeting in Lansing last June to learn about the impending energy bill. Funny thing, it was the Republican representative (Frank Accavitti, then chair of the Energy Committee), not the Democrat (Patty Burkholz), who insisted the bill include a monopoly for Consumer's and DTE.

He said coal plants are such an expensive, high risk, projects that they wouldn't be able to get investors if they didn't have "customer certainty." In other words, Wall Street won't touch coal, so our elected officials force us to be the bank! On the other hand, Rep. Burkholz said she wanted to encourage competition and force utilities to "work lean" by providing customer choice. Do not blame the monopoly granted to Consumers and DTE on Democrats. Granholm signed it because it was the closest thing to a compromise the Republican-controlled State Senate was going to pass.

The Democratic version also included a 20 percent Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), but Republicans forced it down to a lowly 10 percent. Requiring utilities to include only 10 percent of their energy mix to be renewables, when they are already in the 4-5 percent range, is a joke. In 2007, 96 percent of wind energy development went to the 25 states with high (20-25 percent) RPS levels. Michigan is not only failing to lead in clean energy, we aren't even keeping pace!